Head-mounted AR trainer is another Star Trek prop come to life (video)

Those of you familiar with the Dominion headsets from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will probably guess exactly what this wearable AR system does from the picture alone. Japan's institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology is putting the finishing touches on a device to help newbies through complex and dangerous jobs. A head-mounted GoPro Hero 2 HD relays a picture back to an expert, who directs the action while wearing colored gloves. Using color separation, just the hand movements are sent back to the user, processed by a Toughbook in a backpack and overlaid onto the Shimadzu Data Glass HUD. There's nothing special about the tech, but that's what makes it so likely we'll see this making the leap to reality -- more so, because all of the components are off-the-shelf. The only issue is with the unit's software calibration, which takes far too long, but AIST hopes to remedy this over time. Just be careful if you see a backseat driver with blue gloves -- they could make your life miserable.